View report page

110
FRIED-FISH SHOP NUISANCE.
In connection with proposed amendments to the Public
Health (London) Act, 1891, the sanitary committee, in a
report dated May 9th, expressed the opinion that the business
of a fried-fish seller should be added to the list of those
specified in section 19; this being the only means of bringing
about the regulation of the conduct of the said business, so as
to prevent it from being an annoyance to adjoining occupiers.
The recommendation of the committee was not adopted by
your Vestry; but that the business does give rise to nuisance
when carelessly carried on, and without necessary precautions
to prevent escape of effluvia, is beyond question. Decided
cases, moreover, class it as an "offensive business." The latest
of such cases, Duke of Devonshire v. Brookshaw, was tried, in
1899, in the Chancery Division, by Mr. Justice Kekewich; the
plaintiff claiming an injunction to restrain the defendant from
carrying on the business of a fried-fish seller, (at Eastbourne),
or using the house for the business of a fried-fish seller, in
breach of a covenant not to carry on any offensive trade or
business on the premises. The said business, it appeared, had
been carried on since 1887, and in 1892 the Corporation took
proceedings, but discontinued them on certain alterations
being made. The defendant relied on laches and acquiescence
on behalf of the plaintiff; but the judge decided that there
had been a breach of the covenant, in the original conveyance,
not to carry on an offensive trade or business, and granted an
injunction.
MARINE STORES.
The business of a marine store dealer is not scheduled
in the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, as an offensive
business, but it gives rise to offensive smells, and has been
held by the Appeal Court to be ejusdem generis with the businesses
scheduled, originally, in the now repealed Slaughterhouses
(Metropolis) Act, 1874. Acting upon my representations,
your Vestry made application to the late Metropolitan